TANTRA, (Skt., ceremony, woof, from tan, to stretch, to weave). The Sanskrit term for a ceremony or a ceremonial treatise, and thus for a systematic treatise of any kind. The word is used in English, however, only as the designation of a late class of Sanskrit works which are related to the Puranas (see PunArt.A) on the one hand, and to the magic literature in general on the other (see the section Atharvareda under VEDA ) . The Tantras are in the main the sacred works of the worshipers of the androgy nous Siva (q.v.), or of Sakti, the female principle itself (see SAKTAS ) They deal with the creation and destruction of the world, the worship of the gods, the attainment of all objects, magical rites for the acquirement of six superhuman faculties, and four modes of union with spirit by medita tion. Prayers to the gods, especially Siva, some few of great beauty, are comparatively rare. Their place is taken by a condensed form of in vocation of the divinity by means of a great variety of honorific epithets, one class, the 'thousand-name prayers.' forming a division by itself. There are also prayers in the form of amulets, which contain magic and invocation in their very form, and are therefore regarded as especially efficacious. Numerous other subjects are introduced into many Tantras, while certain ones are limited to a single topic, as the mode of breathing in certain rites, or the language of birds and beasts. Siva and his wife. Devi. Una,
or Parvati, are the chief divinities of the Tantras, which are nearly always composed in the form of a dialogue between them, in which the goddess questions the god as to the mode of performing various ceremonies, and the mantras or prayers and incantations to be used in them. These he explains at length, and under solemn cautions that they involve a great mystery, not to he divulged to the profane. The followers of the Tantras consider them as a fifth Veda, and at tribute to them corresponding antiquity. This claim is entirely imaginary; they are mentioned in some of the Puranas, and are probably later than the lexicographer Amarasinha (q.v.), who lived several centuries after the beginning of the Christian Era. No less than sixty-four Tantras are mentioned by the Hindu commentator Sankara (q.v.), yet this important branch of Sanskrit literature has been scarcely studied by Western scholars, nor is there, even in India, any edited text or translation of a single work of this class.